Jacob Miller argues that mathematical models are bad at representing human color preference, so his free palette generator uses image models instead. Drop in a photo or a vibe and get 8 ramps of 10 steps, exportable as CSS, Tailwind, or JSON.

Hayden Mills has run Fontpair for over a decade, curating free font pairings with friends. The new version starts from brand kits: pick a font pairing and color palette, remix it on a sample site in the Playground, and download the result as a PDF or a DESIGN​.md for your agent.

High contrast mode in Notion came out of an accessibility audit and focuses on foreground content: borders, text, and icons, applied systematically so every page still feels considered. Tamara Chu, who worked on it, wanted it to be beautiful too, and feedback during the work compared it to the no-fluff UI of the 1984 Macintosh.

Matt Ström-Awn argued back in 2022 that picking a categorical color palette is an optimization problem rather than a taste problem. Version 2 ships that argument as an actual tool – an npm package, a CLI, and a GUI at cat​e​go​ry​col​ors​.com. Palettes export as raw values, CSS custom properties, or DTCG JSON, which is the part that matters if you’re feeding the result into a design system.

The day has come! Set opacity on a color variable using a number variable, and the color stays linked to your library. No more detaching a library color just to dim a disabled state. The number variables can be scoped for color use only, so the picker stays clean.

Colm Tuite, co-creator of Radix UI and its widely-used color system, pushes back on one of the most persistent design systems myths: that a ​“good” color scale means uniform chroma and lightness steps across hues. In perceptual color spaces like OKLCH, this is physically impossible — yellow simply cannot reach the chroma depth that blue can. But the deeper point is that even if it were achievable, it wouldn’t serve UI design. A palette that works needs purposeful contrast variation, not mathematical regularity.

Matt, designer at Lovable, writes up how they rebuilt their entire color system on OKLCh, derived from just three inputs: a neutral seed, a contrast value, and an accent. The technical choices are solid throughout — perceptually uniform ramps, WCAG contrast by construction, box-shadow borders that composite without layout shift, the state layer — but the most interesting design decision is the intentional reduction of token surface area specifically to make AI-generated UI more consistent. The fewer valid choices a model has, the less it can quietly go wrong.

A color picker that operates in actual color space geometry rather than approximating it. Volume lets you explore the 3D OKLCH space and adjust hue, chroma, or lightness independently, and push palettes directly into Figma Variables.

David Hill explores implementation options for a color system, and Matt Sellers, design lead at Lovable and Reshaped, shares the color token architecture he chose for Lovable’s upcoming design system. The core decision: color-agnostic state overlays (a small set of OKLCH alpha composites) vs. per-intent state tokens (one hover/​pressed value per color × per state × per variant). His case for Option 1 is architectural — the state layer and color layer stay independent, so adding a new intent color requires zero new state tokens. The thread goes deep on OKLCH derivation engines, pseudo-element stacking, and the Figma implementation tradeoffs.

Kevin Muldoon traces the ​“humans can see between 1 and 10 million colors” claim to its source, and finds it’s an 80-year-old shrug repeated without verification. Designers cite this number constantly; the actual answer is more complicated and more interesting.

You can now type directly in the hex code input to access your color variables and styles. Lots of smart details: enter a hex value and see all variables and styles using it, colors are surfaced based on the context, and related terms are baked into the new algorithm (i.e., finding your ​“danger” variable when searching for ​“error”).

This is my new favorite palette generator. After working on the Supa Palette plugin for a few years, Angelo Libero went deep on the new standalone tool. It offers an insane level of control — you can start with a preset like Tailwind CSS 4 and add new color palettes following their algorithm, or go into the Curve mode for full control over lightness, chroma, and hue. Accessibility checks are built in, and there are lots of export options.

Molly suggests using separate color palettes for marketing and product design, as they have different goals and speed of iteration.

Jakub built oklch.fyi and published a short intro to OkLCH: why perceptual uniformity makes palette-building easier, how to keep shades consistent, what to expect from gradients, practical notes on sRGB vs. Display-P3, and the state of browser support and CSS fallback. See Hacker News comments for an in-depth discussion.

Dan Hollick is writing Making Software, ​“a reference manual for people who design and build software.“ I’ve always admired the depth he goes to while researching and explaining complex concepts. In this new chapter, he answers every question you’ve ever had about digital color.

I wrote about Vijay Verma’s Kigen plugin in the past, but now he has extended it with a color generator for the web. It supports different color generation algorithms, naming patterns, and exports CSS, JSON, or Tailwind tokens.

Ruxandra Duru works with Google designers focusing on the intersection of color, emotion, and UX design. ​“After years of what we could call a color fixation, I’ve developed a three-step approach to color theory. My secret to making color more pleasurable and intentional — and much less scary — has to do with balancing, relating, and completing your colors.”

This plugin lets you create custom color interpolation grids using up to four corner colors. It’s perfect for designers exploring palette variations, easing models, or just geeking out on color theory.

New color plugin from Evil Martians! Lots of smart ideas and nice touches, as if Accessible Palette got a younger and cooler sibling. Happy to see this team keeps making color tools better. ​“Harmonizer generates accessible, consistent color palettes for user interfaces. Using the OKLCH color model and APCA contrast formula, Harmonizer helps you create color palettes with consistent chroma and contrast across all levels and hues.”

The new version of the most advanced color picker for Figma, supporting OkLCH color space and APCA & WCAG contrast measurement algorithms. This update includes new square rendering for OkLCH, arrow keys and wheel support in the color picker, automatic detection of the document color mode, Figma UI3 update, and math support in the inputs — see the full release notes.